Thanks A Lot, Universe now my iPad won't charge

 

I found this book in Manchester, in the big queer bookshop in Affleck’s. I’d never heard of it, but it looked cute. And it’s Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas since I haven’t specifically mentioned it. I can’t lie, the title does make me think of that one video of that little girl who’s really mad at her friend, Rachel, because her iPad won’t charge anymore. I think it’s just the phrase, “Thanks a lot”, followed by something.

The blurb says that Brian has always been anxious, whether at home or in class or on the basketball court. His dad tries to get him to stand up for himself, and his mom helps as much as she can, but after he and his brother are placed into foster care, Brian starts having panic attacks. And he doesn’t know if things will ever be “normal” again… Ezra’s always been popular. He’s friends with most of the kids of his basketball team – even Brian, who usually keep to himself. But now, some of his friends have been acting differently, and Brian seems to be pulling away. Ezra wants to help, but he worries if he’s too nice to Brian, his friends will realise he has a crush on him… But when Brian and his brother run away, Ezra has no choice but to take the leap and reach out. Both boys will have to decide if they’re willing to risk sharing parts of themselves they’d rather hide. But if they can be brave, they might just find out the best in themselves – and each other.

So in chapter 1, Brian is horrendously awkward when anyone tries to talk to him at school, and then gets bullied slightly by being called “Ghost” – homebody does have social anxiety, and he’s also turning thirteen. Chapter 2 bobs over to Ezra’s POV, it’s a short little chapter and all you really find out is about his group chat with his friends and about how one of them seems quieter lately. So the first two chapters, I won’t lie, were very whatever. But in chapter 3 Brian’s dad leaves suddenly, like he’s left a letter that his mum finds that basically says that he's had to leave suddenly, so Brian thinks that means someone is after him. It was kind of zero to 100, because his mum had also taken a bunch of pills, which kind of came out of nowhere. But in the hospital, Brian and his little brother, Ritchie, are essentially going to be placed in foster care.

The book definitely, like I said in the previous paragraph, went from zero to 100 really quickly, especially for Brian’s chapters. It was odd, Brian’s chapters were fully on go mode, whereas Ezra’s was more of a slow burn. And it definitely did feel almost like two different totally different stories until the two blended together. I do, however, feel like there was a bit of a disconnect, for Ezra’s story in the book and what was written on the blurb. This isn’t a negative, but since the blurb says that Ezra has a crush on Brian, I was expecting this to be more present right from the beginning. Ezra does mention that when one of his friends has feelings for a girl, he’s never had those kinds of feelings for a girl, but there isn’t that immediate reveal that he has a crush on Brian. So, it just took longer to get to Ezra being all that relevant to the plot than I thought it would.

You do find out Brian and Ritchie’s dad was essentially a Laganja Estranja dealer, and the police caught up to him, so that’s why he ran away.

It definitely reads like how I thought it should have once I realised who the audience was. The book didn’t read pretentious, if that makes sense? It reads like something that it easy approachable for younger teens. And I appreciated how it dealt with the topics it dealt with. I think under any other circumstances, or if the audience was older, I would have liked the book to have spent a little more time on some of the conversations that were had in the book, instead of it just saying something like, “I told XYZ about XYZ and it didn’t make me feel broken.” Again, let me just say, I know the book was like that because of who it was aimed for, and not everyone would want to read these traumatic pasts. I would have been fine with it, and, again, had the book been aimed at a slightly older audience I would have been disappointed if it wasn’t included. But with how it was in the book, it was fine.

I think that point carries over into the characters as well. Brian and Ezra were all good, and so was this other side character, Gabe. Not every single side character was all that fleshed out. I will say, once again, since this book was likely aimed at a younger audience, I think it was okay that not every character was all that fleshed out. I say that because I feel like a younger person probably isn’t going to be all that fussed about, or focus on, the side characters all that much. As someone older, I would have liked to have seen a little more of Ezra’s friends Ty and Kevan, and learned a little more about them.

Even though I did get this book from a queer bookshop, while queerness was a part of it, as Ezra’s whole plotline was with his coming out and his friends, the queerness never felt like the focus to me. That’s not a negative by any means; it’s just a statement. And I do standby what I said before, or thought before, that even though Ezra did have his own POV and plotline, his definitely felt second to Brian’s. Imagine watching a TV series, Brian’s plotline was the main one, and Ezra’s was the sub-plot – that’s what this book felt like. And since I knew going into the book that the queerness wouldn’t have been the main focus, I was fine with the level of presence it had.

And like how I just said the queerness of the book was not the focus. To me, and I might have gotten this wrong, the goal of the book felt like it was to tell kids around Brian’s age (pre-teens/young teens) that it’s okay to feel your feelings, to talk about them, and that sometimes life wasn’t going to go well for you, and that was okay. The world won’t end if one seemingly huge thing happens to you. And that’s part of what I enjoyed about this book: it knew what it wanted to achieve, and how it wanted to do it. I do also think that the characters were all (for the most part) really mature for kids that were like 12 and 13. I was about to say that you definitely see more of the childishness in Ezra’s POV, but that’s because he’s doesn’t go through a traumatic life event like Brian does. So I guess it makes sense that Brian would have to be mature.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Again, I’m definitely aware that I absolutely was not the intended audience for this book, but I still thought it was good and I really think it did a good job of covering the topics that it did while still keeping a positive light so that kids going through similar things to Brian might be able to see that things would still be okay for them.

Okay, bye!